British Nationalist

Monday, 25 September 2017

Congratulations are in order for the Alternative für Deutschland: they are a nationalist, Eurosceptic party founded in 2013 and in yesterday's federal election in Germany they took 13.5 percent of the vote, which will translate to 90 seats in the 631 seat Bundestag - the German parliament.

The results overall look like this:

Angela Merkel's will almost certainly remain Federal Chancellor. Although she only directly controls 32.6 percent of the vote there is no plausible alliance that could be built against her since the SPD have already reconciled themselves to opposition.

The AfD did at least twice as well as expected. In the week before the election, observers were even dubious as to whether they would break the 5 percent threshold required to get any seats in the Bundestag.

So Germany is by no means saved, either from immigration or Europe yet, but it is a good start.

There is another interesting election next weekend. Catalonia will be voting for independence from Spain. According to Madrid, the referendum is illegal, but it looks like it will be happening anyway. Indications are they will vote themselves out of Spain - what happens then is anyone's guess.